


Sibling Rivalry and Other Weird Bitey Things

by Kaesa



Category: Flight Rising
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Gen, Humor, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:46:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5471801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaesa/pseuds/Kaesa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes people accidentally sell unhatched eggs to Crim.  And if Crim's not doing anything with them, why shouldn't Tripp try and do something useful with them?</p><p>Well, for one thing, there's the crippling guilt.  And for another thing, unhatched dragon eggs tend to hatch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sibling Rivalry and Other Weird Bitey Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dizmo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizmo/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, dizmo! Thank you for letting me write dragons! I hope you enjoy this story, and may you find many Strange Chests wherever you may be grinding for them.

Tripp had accepted, long ago, that everyone her dad knew was crazy. After a month's respite at home in the Zephyr Steppes, it was going to be hard to get back to the monthly festival circuit. And yet, here she was getting ready to board a boat to the Southern Icefield.

Oh well. At least there was free entertainment. Since all her stuff was packed up, she could watch Crim and Pinkerton bicker. They'd had to come back from spending the solstice in Ashfall Waste, so they'd probably been on the road for a while longer, and wow did they look cranky.

"Have you been giving away all my Ambush stones again?" Crim was puffing herself up angrily, but the jangling of all her bangles kind of spoiled the effect.

Pinkerton simply rolled his eyes. "I don't know! How am I supposed to keep track of all this _junk_ you get your claws on?"

Tripp wished she had some corn and a kettle to pop it in. Instead, she clambered up to the roof of her father's cart to get a better view of the argument.

Crim's tail lashed. "Well, it's not your stuff, is it? So you shouldn't have to keep track of it. Or give it away!"

"Well, if it's not _my_ stuff why do I always have to cart it around for you when we --"

They were interrupted by Tomo clearing her throat. "Well! How are we all today? Ready to set off for the Fortress of Ends, I hope!" Tripp couldn't read the Snapper's body language at all, but she looked at Scribbles, who was in their usual place on Tomo's shoulder, and seemed awfully tense about something. Hmm. Probably Tomo wasn't quite as cheerful as her words indicated. "Right, everyone ready? You know the rules on the boat. We'll be sailing through the Frigid Floes in no time if all goes well. Scribbles, show me the manifest!"

Ugh, this was the extra-boring part where Tomo triple-checked that everything had been accounted for and everyone was getting on the boat okay.

The canvas atop the cart shook slightly as Pipp landed next to her. "Isn't this exciting?"

"Nope," said Tripp. "Remember last year? Last year was exciting." A potential new trader had wanted to join their little caravan at the last minute -- a Water fortune-teller -- only he was an Imperial and wouldn't fit on the boat. He'd ended up throwing a tantrum while Tomo sent everyone scurrying around to try and make arrangements for a barge in time, found this was impossible, and finally gave up trying to explain this to the scryer. Eventually, after enduring a few very personal remarks, she'd finally snapped, told everyone else to get onto the ship, and said he could start swimming.

"Last year was _horrible,_ " Pipp sniffed. "All that shouting and mess. We left a whole day late."

"Yeah but you have to admit what Scribbles did to his sign was pretty great," said Tripp. The fortuneteller had left in a huff, but apparently not before Scribbles had had a chance to magically rearrange the letters painted on his cart to spell "Rocky Ships Wrong." To this day Tripp wasn't sure if it was because he'd called Tomo an amnesiac or if he'd just had the bad sense to try and bring a big quartz scrying crystal along with him. Knowing Scribbles it was probably a little of both. "Remind me never to get on Scribbles' bad side."

"Since you barely do anything that probably won't be hard," said Pipp, her nostrils flared in irritation. "You know, most people don't get to travel as much as we do! You should be grateful!"

"Uh. I guess if you wanna see it that way you can. But I can think of eleven thousand better things to do."

Pipp sighed. "Think of it as an adventure!"

Tripp rolled her eyes. "It's not an adventure if you do it all year."

"Suit yourself, I guess," said Pipp, visibly giving up, and, satisfied that she wouldn't be bothered, Tripp curled up and fell asleep.

* * *

The road through the Snowsquall Tundra was muddy and cold, and as always, Tripp found herself fervently wished they could just fly everywhere. But, of course, that was impossible. Even if Dad didn't have the cart to deal with, Tomo couldn't fly, and Crim and Pinkerton had their winter coats in. They looked absolutely ridiculous, and the normally chipper Crim was reduced to irritable muttering at the end of the day as she tried to get the burrs out of her coat before she opened her booth in the morning.

The trading post they'd settled at for the day was in the middle of a pine forest, and as disinterested as Tripp was in the yearly rounds they made from Flight to Flight, she did enjoy exploring. So that morning, to get on her dad's good side, she spent a couple of hours swapping off a bunch of bark masks before quietly slipping away from the cart and going across the way to Pinkerton.

"Heya," she said. "Can I have a thing?"

Pinkerton sighed. "I am never going to get rid of enough of this stuff for it to be worth it, am I?" he asked.

"Nope!" said Tripp. She wandered up to the huge pile of stuff he had today and cracked her knuckles before starting to pick through the pile.

"Hey! No picking what you get," said Pinkerton. "You know the rules."

"Oh, come on. You and I both know this heap is full of useless junk," said Tripp. "Besides, we're like family."

"Since this is all an exercise in reducing the amount of useless junk a member of my family hoards, I don't think that's a very good argument," said Pinkerton, shoving his glasses back up his nose.

Tripp sighed. "Fine, fine. I'll close my eyes, yeah?" She reached blindly into the stack, and came out with something that might be clothing? But... it was just a Hainu collar.

"Huh. I didn't even know that was in there," said Pinkerton.

"You always say that," said Tripp. She sighed. "Oh well, better luck next time, I guess. Thanks, I guess."

"And don't just take it over to Crim's cart," Pinkerton warned her as she flitted away.

Crim was a lot more welcoming than Pinkerton. Dad said that there was a business lesson to learn from everyone, no matter how lacking in acumen they were. In Crim's case, it was that she was enthusiastic about what she did. Sure, what she did was mostly losing money, but Tripp had to admit that her attitude was a lot more effective than her brother's put-upon attitude. She'd seen the same coatl visit her cart two or three times today already! People rarely returned to see Pinkerton more than once a day, even though he was giving away free stuff. "Hello, Tripp! Or are you Pipp?" she asked Tripp.

"Pretty sure I'm Tripp," said Tripp. "You want a Hainu collar?"

"I'd love one!" said Crim, baring all her teeth in that weird, disconcerting expression non-Fae dragons called a "smile." (Fae knew that you smiled with your crests, "ear to ear," but the other breeds often seemed to read this as a sign of aggression.) "Will you take five hundred treasure for it?"

"Hmm. Yeah, I guess that's enough," said Tripp, doubtfully. She was almost tempted to haggle, but that never seemed to work with Crim. "What else are you looking for?"

Crim listed a few things off and Tripp dug in her bags for the scraps of paper and handfuls of leaves that made Crim so happy. She even managed not to laugh when Crim asked for a gene scroll for a laughably small sum. But... she had to know. "Has anyone actually sold you scrolls or whatever?"

"Oh, yes," said Crim, brightly. "Not often, but I have quite a nice collection of scrolls and eggs."

"... _Eggs?_ " Tripp asked.

"Would you like to see them?" Crim asked.

"Nah, I'm... I'm good," said Tripp.

"They're quite pretty!" said Crim.

"Uh. Yeah. I guess," said Tripp. She wasn't sure why she was trying to feign enthusiasm, but she was. "How many do you have?" she asked Crim.

"Oh, around five or six dozen," said Crim. "Honestly I've lost count."

Five or six _dozen._

Dragon eggs.

She'd _lost count._

And she was just keeping them. And doing nothing with them. Dragons born from abandoned eggs were considered lucky. There was different reasoning for this superstition in each Flight -- in the Wyrmwound it was because such eggs were assumed to be survivors of whatever had befallen their clans of origin; in the Tangled Wood it was because you never knew what sort of dragon would emerge; back home on the Windswept Plateau the dragons were considered well-traveled even before their hatching. But the general idea was the same all over -- foundling eggs were a good luck charm, and there were clans out there who would have paid a small fortune for the chance to hatch one. And Crim was just keeping them to look at and be smug about.

"Is something wrong?" Crim asked.

"Uh, no, I just. The cold. It kinda stopped my brain for a second," said Tripp, trying not to wonder how much she could get away with charging for found, unhatched eggs. She breathed out and watched the fog trail out of her nostrils. "Why does the Crystalline Gala happen in winter, anyway? That means all the travelers from other Flights have to slog through the cold to celebrate it, and it makes no sense."

"Oh, it's summer right now in the Southern Ice Field!" said Crim. "The seasons are reversed. Sort of. It's complicated. But it's much colder here in July. I visit my great-grandmother down here every now and then. The sun doesn't even rise for months!" She looked like she quite possibly enjoyed these visits. Tundras were nuts.

"...so this is as warm as it gets?" Tripp asked.

"Think so," said Crim. "It's hard to tell, it's all cold weather to me, I'm used to the Ashfall Waste! But it's not so bad once you get used to it." She frowned at Tripp. "Well, once _I_ get used to it, at any rate. I guess you're smaller. You should get some furs if you're cold! Here, let me see if I have some..."

And before she could get away, Crim was rummaging through her tidy, organized boxes of junk so she could give Tripp something warm to wear. Tripp caught a glimpse of a pile of glinting oblong shapes in one chest and a stack of scrolls in another before Crim finally found the furs.

Tripp thanked her before she went on her way, treasure jangling in the bags, furs wrapped around her, but all she could think about were those eggs, and as she explored the forest they kept coming back to her.

 _Just one_ , she thought. _If I sold just one and showed Dad all the treasure I'd made he'd have to admit I've done more than my fair share and let me off of swapping for a year. Imagine, a whole year not trying to trade useless, boring stuff for even more useless, boring stuff!_

All day it nagged at her. She could go out flying with her friends every day! She could help her mother with the most delicate parts of her skin-making trade in the morning, then visit her older brother Blipp on the Cloudsong! Or she could explore Sornieth at her leisure, following the breeze wherever it led. She had so many ideas, and all of them were infinitely more appealing than hawking silks for hours at a time. All she'd need were a few eggs. It wasn't like Crim was using them. She'd never miss the eggs!

So when she got back to the trading post at the end of the day, she waited for Crim and Pinkerton to start bickering again. When she was sure they weren't looking, she crept over to Crim's booth, opened the chest full of eggs slowly as she dared, grabbed one at random, slipped it into a nondescript burlap bag, and hurried away.

When she got back to the safety of the cart, she risked a glance into her bag. Inside was a gleaming, faceted egg, silvery and translucent, and if she squinted, she could see the shadow of the hatchling inside.

* * *

They were in the Cloudscrape Crags and everything was TERRIBLE.

Pipp was on to her, and probably so was Scribbles. And she could see why. Even a Coatl would have noticed how guilty Tripp was acting, how uncharacteristically careful she was with the bag that contained her snaffled egg, how tense she got every time she overheard Crim wonder aloud where something had gone. And the roads were rough, so every time the cart bounced Tripp had trouble not picturing the egg cracking, and worrying that either the tiny hatchling inside would be injured or dead due to an improper hatching, or would climb out of Pipp's bag and give her away in front of everyone.

Why had she done this? What was wrong with her? Why would she steal something? Was she really that greedy? She didn't like to think she was. But clearly, she was. She was the scum of Sornieth. She was rotten. She belonged at the bottom of the Wyrmwound and no mistake.

She tried to tell herself that it was just _borrowing_ , like Mom used to do sometimes. Mom was a Ridgeback, though, and it seemed to be a lot more excusable for them. Plus, she always gave whatever it was back eventually, which Tripp couldn't really do because then she'd actually have to _explain herself to Crim,_ which terrified her.

Thankfully, at least Dad was still totally oblivious. That should've been a help, but he was pretty wrapped up in negotiations with Joxar and the couriers about supplies for the upcoming festivities, and he often left the cart to Tripp and Pipp to manage, so Pipp had to stick around and help, and there was no escaping her sister's beady, judgmental eyes. Pipp had hatched two days before Tripp, and she never let Tripp forget that she was the _older, more responsible_ sister, a sure sign of Pipp's total immaturity.

Things came to a head one afternoon. Most of the trading post dragons were stretching their wings or legs. Crim was negotiating with an antsy Spiral, Baldwin had a twitchy Nocturne hovering over his cauldron, and Tomo and Scribbles had just finished quizzing a Guardian on local traditions before lumbering over to the swap stand.

"And how is business today?" Tomo asked. She seemed to think she was in charge of everyone at the trading post, and she was kind of right inasmuch as no one wanted to disappoint her, but Pipp had always been much more intimidated by Scribbles.

"It's great!" said Pipp. "I sold like a jillion maned cobras today. Although a bunch of dragons kept coming by specifically to ask why I didn't have spined cobras instead."

"Ugh, that's the _worst_ ," said Tripp. "Isn't one snake as good as another? You already have a hundred and eighty snakes, why aren't you already satisfied with your shiny snake hoard?"

"Well, you know how collectors are," said Pipp. "Anyway now we have lots of snakes!" she said cheerfully.

"Ugh," said Tripp.

"That's... wonderful," said Tomo, with a slightly hesitant smile. Scribbles hopped down from her shoulder and onto the cart and extended a claw towards Pipp.

"Uh... yeah?" Tripp asked. They gestured until Tripp held her claw out, then placed a piece of crumpled-up paper in it, before flitting back to Tomo's back. "...Thanks," said Tripp weakly.

"Well, good luck, you two!" said Tomo. "If you'll excuse me I have to go check on Baldwin."

Tripp didn't dare open up her claw until the two of them were out of earshot, but when she did, she frowned. It was a beautiful, complicated origami egg, made of interlocking ruffles of white paper and glinting silver foil.

"What'd they give you?" Pipp asked, craning her neck around Tripp's head to see. "Ooh, that's so pretty!"

Something inside Tripp snapped. "Stop pretending you don't know!" she hissed.

"...know what?" Pipp asked. She was doing a good job of looking sincerely baffled.

" _You_ know," said Tripp.

"I definitely do not know," said Pipp. She still looked pretty confused.

...Oh no. Maybe she actually _was_ confused. "Uhh," said Tripp. "I."

"Tripp," said Pipp, "I'm really worried about you. You haven't been yourself lately."

"Well, I..."

"You've actually been putting an effort into staying here and working most of the day!" said Pipp. "It's super weird!"

That was true. She'd been worried about leaving the egg alone for too long. She tried not to look shifty about it.

"And normally I'd think, wow, maybe Tripp's finally learning to work hard and be responsible!" said Pipp. "But you obviously hate every minute of it still. So what gives?"

"Um. Well, uh, it's that thing you said about hard work and responsibility. Yeah," said Tripp. She looked down at the origami egg. She looked back at her sister. Her ruffs were folded back flat against her skull in irritation. "I. It's. ...Okay fine, I stole an egg," she blurted.

"...What," said Pipp flatly.

Tripp looked around to make sure no one was listening. "Come on, don't make me repeat it."

"Where would you even _get_ an --"

"Shhh!" hissed Tripp.

"From someone's _nest?_ And _why_ would you --"

"I just wanted -- it wasn't like -- I don't knowwww," moaned Tripp, clutching her head in her claws. "Everything is terrible and I am the worst."

Pipp sighed. "You aren't the worst, probably. ...Everything might be terrible, though. Come on." She dragged out the sign saying that Swipp's Swap Stand was closed and propped it up on one wheel of the cart. "Let's go inside and you can tell me about the egg."

And so Tripp told her sister about Crim and her egg hoard, and about her own greedy imaginings, and even though she kept finding herself phrasing everything as if it had just happened without Tripp's intervention, Pipp did not raise her voice or flare her ruffs in disgust or twitch her tail in rage. She did look a little disappointed in Tripp, but that was okay. Tripp was pretty disappointed in herself these days too.

"...so what should I do?" Tripp asked, desperately.

"Can you just put it back?" Pipp asked. She'd started sorting through scraps of string and twine while Tripp talked, and while it was kind of irritating not to be paid someone's full attention while you were talking, Tripp wished she had something to distract herself from her own situation.

So she settled down next to the pile of string and joined in. "I've tried putting it back, yeah! I think Crim must have noticed one was gone. She's been keeping her chest full of eggs within her line of sight since it happened. And locked."

Pipp nodded sagely. "...Could you slip it into Pinkerton's pile, maybe?"

"What? No!" said Tripp. "He'll just give it away to someone!"

"...but you don't want it," said Pipp.

"That's not the _point,_ " said Tripp, twisting the twine in her claws with worry and woe. "I mean, I mean, can you imagine. He'll stack more garbage on top of it and it'll get all cracked and squished and even if it doesn't who _knows_ who will get it and --"

"All right, all right, I get the point," said Pipp. "...kind of."

Tripp realized she'd tied the string she was holding into several knots. "Maybe we should just tell Dad?" she said.

"No!" said Pipp quickly. "No, we can deal with this, it will all be fine. I'm sure we won't need to bother him."

"...are you worried this will make you look bad?" Tripp asked, realization suddenly dawning.

"No!" said Pipp. "...yes. Look, just -- just don't do anything dumb. Dumber than you already did, I mean."

Tripp rolled her eyes. Well, if she was going to get _that_ kind of treatment... she dropped the half-knotted string into the cloth pile, and sighed. "Fine. Whatever." Then she turned to go.

"Wait!" said Pipp. "...can I see it?" she asked hesitantly.

Tripp paused. "The egg? Sure, why not," she said, halfheartedly. She carefully pulled the bag out of the sturdy box where she'd stored it among soft scraps of cloth and leather, and slowly drew the egg out.

"Wow. I've never seen an Ice egg before. Did someone sell this to her?" Pipp asked.

"I guess they must have," said Tripp. She ran a claw over the facets of the egg.

Suddenly, the cart jolted, and to Tripp's horror, the egg slipped out of her grasp and hit a pile of rusty old armor.

"Oh no oh no oh no," she breathed, and she and Pipp hurried to retrieve the egg -- but once Tripp pulled it out of the pile of armor, she saw a huge crack in the shell. She looked to Pipp for answers, but she was as horrified as Tripp. "Oh _no,_ " she said again.

"Quick, put it back in that chest," said Pipp, rearranging the cloth and leather into a sort of... makeshift nest, Tripp thought?

"Tripp? Pipp?" they heard their father say. "Are you inside? ...Pipp?" Oh, that explained it. He was back, and closing up shop for the night, so he'd folded up the part of the swap stand that stuck out. And inadvertently broken the egg.

Tripp wanted to scream. "Aaaah," she said, very very quietly. She ignored Pipp's strange look and placed the cracked egg in the chest.

Pipp laid a cloth over it gently. "We should prop it open a little," she said. "So it can get air."

"Tripp? Pipp? Look, I left you two in charge, I expect some --"

"Just a minute, Dad!" Pipp called, hurrying out to meet him, and Tripp wedged a dirty stone tile between the base of the chest and its top and followed her out.

After a long lecture on responsibility, business acumen, swapping in general, and the noble ancestry of the Swipp lineage, he dropped off some newly-acquired skins for Guardians and left them to tally up the day's work.

After he'd disappeared from view, they looked at each other, not daring to speak. Tripp counted to eleven in the quietest whisper she could manage, and then the both of them rushed back into the cart. Tripp carefully opened the top of the chest and took the cloth off.

The hatchling blinked four milk-white eyes up at her. Then it sank its needle teeth into her arm. "Aaargh, Windsinger's snot, let me go you little beast!" she snarled, and shook it off. It made a soft, slightly resentful skreeing noise.

"What colors is it?" Pipp asked, wide-eyed.

"Can't see, the light isn't good in here. Pass me that lantern?" said Tripp. She held the light so it shone over the little Mirror. "Bleagh," she said, making a face. It was bright pink with muddy green wings. She squinted at the Mirror. It -- he? -- peered back. She moved the lamp back and forth a bit and watched the hatchling follow it with his eyes.

"Hey, it's just hatched, of course it's not gonna look its best." The fragments of the eggshell were already melting and making the cloth soggy; she'd have to figure out a good excuse to hang them up to dry. At least Ice eggs just melted away, though; she didn't know how she would have smuggled eggshells out without anyone noticing.

"It's not that, just -- don't they usually, like, look better? I thought their eyes usually matched or something. Aren't they supposed to be special? He doesn't even have any genes."

"...Oh," said Pipp, oddly quiet. "Well. You're, uh. Their genes don't come in until later, usually, and ...you're thinking of the dragons you've _met_ who were first generation. The ones that aren't very pretty... they usually get exalted as soon as they're old enough to fly."

Tripp had been irritated at getting an inexplicably ugly hatchling, but now the bottom had dropped out of her stomach. "Wait, what?" Pipp had traveled with Dad a little longer than Tripp, so she probably knew what she was talking about, but that didn't stop Tripp from trying to think of reasons she could be wrong. Maybe

"It's not a bad thing!" said Pipp. "I mean, I mean, think of it this way, they can be good luck charms for the gods! Isn't that cool?"

"No!" said Tripp. "No, it is not cool. Maybe if we were home it would be cool because, you know, I'd know he was learning to play the flute or, or, or painting, or something, or -- well at least I could have Blipp look out for him, but are you -- are you honestly suggesting I should send this little guy to the _Icewarden?_ The Icewarden's a jerk!"

"See, this would never have happened if you hadn't been spending too much time at the Cloudsong with Blipp," said Pipp. "He's _so_ irresponsible and so are you."

"I don't see what's so irresponsible about working for the Windsinger," said Tripp. "Besides, Blipp has a great kite collection." She considered telling Pipp to come visit their brother with her sometime, because Blipp said he missed her, but... Pipp didn't really deserve access to Blipp's awesome kite collection. Most of them were bigger than Tripp so sometimes Blipp let her ride around on them.

"Yeah, that he _stole,_ " said Pipp.

"Borrowed!" said Tripp. "He said he'd give them back. Eventually. If they come looking for their kites. I mean, Mom always gives stuff back, that's just kinda how Ridgebacks are, I think."

"Aaargh," said Pipp. "You're being ridiculous. Just send the hatchling to the Icewarden and be done with it."

"He's _my responsibility_ , I'm not sending him off to get frozen," snarled Tripp.

"Technically it's really only your responsibility because you _stole from Crim_ ," said Pipp.

" _Technically_ Crim probably paid ten treasure or something for the egg and some poor jerk feels like an idiot for letting it go just like that, and anyway, possession is ten-elevenths of the law, so he's mine."

"Yeah, if you're _Blipp,_ " said Pipp, nastily. "We're here to swap, not to steal! Why do you think he ended up at the Cloudsong and not out here with Dad?"

Tripp bit back an absolutely venomous response to this, because as angry as she was at Pipp for implying that their brother was somehow not really part of the family just because he was an exalt -- just because he'd _chosen_ to become an exalt! -- and in the same breath suggesting she exalt this tiny hatchling... well if she thought about it too hard she'd lose her temper and augh, she couldn't do that. "Look, are you gonna help me hide him from Dad or not?" said Tripp.

Pipp gritted her teeth. " _Fine._ But don't get too attached, you _know_ we can't feed a growing Mirror for long. It's going to get bigger than us in a matter of weeks."

* * *

By the time they reached the city surrounding the Fortress of Ends, things were getting... difficult. On the one hand, Dad was really distracted and had been spending most of his time away from the festival trading post lately, and Tripp had managed to enlist the help of several of the courier dragons who were always clustered around the gods' residences during festival weeks, so usually there was someone who could watch the hatchling and play with him while Tripp and Pipp were both busy. On the other hand, they were both busy _all the time_ now, rushing to and fro helping Dad get ready for the Gala and taking care of the huge influx of customers that a festival always brought. Pipp wasn't happy with Tripp, who had turned down every one of her suggestions and accidentally named the hatchling.

"It just happened! I don't know, he looks like a Snipp," she said. "He bites like a Snipp."

The look Pipp gave her was mildly apoplectic. "That's a _family_ name, why would you even --"

"It's not like I named him for real, that's just what I'm calling him for now," said Tripp. "I mean I can't just call him Hey You."

"We _need_ to deal with this," said Pipp. "He's eating all our snakes! Dad is going to notice. Those snakes go for a lot of treasure, you know."

Tripp sighed. "I'll figure something out, okay? Just -- quit _bugging_ me about it."

It was occupying her a lot. Some of the couriers had been leaning hard on her about just leaving the hatchling with the Icewarden. He was, after all, right there. It was a sensible solution, but Tripp kept having what were admittedly stupid worries, like _But what if he gets cold at night?_ and _But what if they don't name him?_ She caught herself looking up at the Fortress of Ends fairly often -- it was a cool blue structure on top of a huge mountain of ice, visible from everywhere in the city. Except for the week of the Gala, nobody went up the mountain except for exalts -- it was too steep and too slippery for most dragons to walk -- and the wind was almost as strong as the gusts she'd encountered in the Twisting Crescendo, only much chillier, so flight would be difficult.

One day, just before the Crystalline Gala, Pipp came to her excitedly after a supplies excursion into the city. "Tripp! Tripp! I _found someone!_ "

"Uh. What?" Tripp asked.

"To take Snipp -- I mean, to take the hatchling," said Pipp.

"...okay? What are they like?" she asked.

"Well, they're a big clan," said Pipp, "but they're short on cash and they've been looking for a dragon hatched on their guiding spirit's birthday."

Some clans thought that beings from another plane could guide them and help them what to do. They often paid tributes to these spirits by naming dragons after them, or hiring on dragons who had very particular numerological associations according to the time of their birth, or restricting some of the dragons from nesting. Tripp thought it was kind of weird. "Guiding spirits have birthdays?"

"Guiding spirits apparently have a lot of weird ideas, I don't question it. Anyway, they said the colors were no problem, they'd just scatter scroll him until he wasn't ugly."

"Snipp is _not ugly,_ " she found herself snarling. "He's just... unique."

"Actually, that reminds me, there was another clan that was interested in rare color combinations," said Pipp. "But they seemed super weird."

"Okay, if you think they seemed significantly weirder than the birthday clan they're definitely too weird for me," Tripp decided. She sighed. "I don't know, I don't really _want_ to give him to dragons who will only like him for his birthday. We have to do something with him, I know."

Pipp's eyes wandered up to the Fortress of Ends, and Tripp couldn't help but follow her gaze. "Not... like that, though. He's so little!"

"Not really," said Pipp.

"Well. Little for a Mirror," she amended. "Come on, we should probably take him off the couriers' hands."

They trudged off to the couriers' barracks, which was built into the mountain of ice the Fortress stood atop. Spitfire, a black-and-red dragon, wandered out to meet them, looking fairly exhausted and walking slightly stiffly. It was only when he got close that she saw Snipp hanging from one of Spitfire's wings, his fangs sunk deep into the leather. "Hey, kids," he said, unenthused. "Did you forget to feed him or is he always like this?" He finally managed to shake Snipp off.

"He's always like that," said Pipp wrily.

"Yeah, well," said Spitfire, "I need that wing for flying."

Snipp regained his footing and then scampered up to Tripp, nuzzling her and almost knocking her over. He was still a little smaller than her, but probably not for long. Mirrors grew _fast_. "Trrrrripp!" he trilled. "Lunch???" he asked.

"What, he's talking already?" Pipp asked.

"He just knows my name, his name, and the word 'lunch,'" said Tripp. "I think those are the important things to him. I don't know if that's normal for Mirrors." Honestly, she was learning more from him than the other way around -- how to interpret the inflections of his hatchling babbling and his body language, mostly.

"Either of you up for the races tomorrow morning?" Spitfire asked. The courier dragons always held races on the first day of the elemental festivals, and Tripp usually did pretty well in them for a non-courier.

But this time around she couldn't do it. "I don't see how I'll have the time between the swap stand and this little dweeb," she said, nodding at Snipp. "Speaking of which, come on, it's time to go hide you, Snipp."

"Luuunch?" he asked hopefully.

"Nope. Hide."

He gave a pathetic little squeaky roar, then tried to gnaw on the tip of her tail until she flitted out of his reach. He wasn't flying yet, thankfully.

Unfortunately, on the way back to the trading post, they encountered Baldwin. He was pretty absent-minded, so Tripp had high hopes of distracting him from the Mirror hatchling walking between them, but unfortunately, the way he cleared his throat and looked from her, to Pipp, to Snipp, made her worry. "Aah, young Tripp," he said. "I've been waiting for you."

"Uh. Really? Why?" said Tripp. She and Pipp exchanged a nervous glance.

"Well," said Baldwin, "we all talk, you see. Tomo and I have noticed you two with all sorts of little bumps and scratches, and Pinkerton and Crim have seen you leaving the swap stand unattended for long periods of time. Even Scribbles... expressed concern." He frowned. "I think that was concern? Difficult to tell. ...And of course we know your father's very busy at the end of the month -- we all are -- but he'd certainly want to know what was going on if he'd noticed it." He looked at the Mirror hatchling. "And who is this?"

Snipp trilled happily at being paid attention to, and favored Baldwin with a needly grin.

"No idea," said Tripp. She didn't know why she was trying to seem convincing. It probably wasn't going to work.

Baldwin raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"He followed us home one day after we were out catching bugs," said Pipp fluidly; she was a fast talker when she wanted to be and boy was she going fast now. "There was this avalanche and I think probably his lair was squashed and really it's a good thing he found us because otherwise --"

Tripp sighed, and cut her off. "Pipp. Stop." This wasn't going to end well, but they were backed into a corner. "I found an egg," she said.

"Aah. You found an egg. Wonderful! And you didn't try to sell it?" he asked.

"Um," said Tripp, guiltily.

"Or tell anyone that you found it?" he pressed.

"Well," said Tripp, trying to think of a good reason for this.

"How interesting!" said Baldwin. "That's absolutely fascinating."  He watched her over his spectacles for a moment.

They continued onward in terrible silence for a few moments. Pipp was flying just ahead of them, refusing to look at Tripp, and Snipp was leaping from one slushy footprint to the next, cheerfully oblivious to everything. Tripp watched him stalk and viciously pounce on a small chunk of snow, and tried not to think about selling him to weirdos who only wanted him for his birthday.

"Okay, fine, I stole an egg," said Tripp, hanging her head in shame. "From Crim. It accidentally got cracked and -- and he's -- yeah."

"Sssssnipp!" Snipp said happily. "Lunch?"

" _No_ , Snipp," said Tripp.

Pipp turned on her. "Why did you _tell_ him, now he's gonna tell Dad, we're both going to be in trouble, and --"

"There's just no point lying to someone who's already figured out the truth," sighed Tripp.

"You stole from Crim, eh? I suspected as much," said Baldwin, raising an eyebrow.

"Do I have to tell Crim?" she asked, worriedly. "I don't want to tell Crim! I don't want her to think I'm a thief or something."

"Tripp, you _are_ a thief," Pipp pointed out, still not looking at her.

"But I don't want her to realize that!" said Tripp.

"Trrrrrripp!" said Snipp cheerfully.

"I don't really think you can avoid that," said Baldwin, cheerfully. "Like I said, we all talk. She's been particularly worried about you. Says you don't sell things to her anymore."

"Yeah, I. I felt too bad to look her in the eye," said Tripp, cringing.

"Let me let you in on a little secret about Crim," said Baldwin. "Every day she comes over to my cauldron and has me melt all sorts of things down for her, everything from honeycomb fragments to harpies. She doesn't actually keep it all."

"...what? Really?" said Tripp.

"She just likes collecting," said Baldwin. "She acquires all those things, checks them off her list, and puts them away. But she certainly doesn't keep them all! Oh, she keeps plenty of it, and she writes everything down, you see, because she could never remember where all of it was. And that's why it annoys her so much when somebody -- you or Pinkerton -- steals something from her. It's not the loss of the item, it's the loss of the information."

"...Does Pinkerton know that?" said Tripp.

"He tries to remember to record what he's taken. Sometimes he forgets, though," said Baldwin. "Then he forgets that he forgot. Anyway, if you'd wanted an egg I'm sure she'd have given you one."

"I was just gonna sell it," said Tripp, looking guiltily at Snipp. He was gnawing happily on a stick he'd picked up along the way. "Rrrr?" he asked, looking up at her. "Wow, I hope you don't ever remember I said that," she told him.

"You know," said Baldwin, "you could have sent him off with one of the exalt groups to the Icewarden any time. Right before the festival they'll take anyone."

"I _can't,_ " she said.

Pipp said, "She's gotten very attached to him. It. To it."

"I see," said Baldwin. He stopped walking for a moment, rolling his pearl around in the snow, never quite letting go of it. Tripp realized, looking up at her surroundings, that just around the corner, beyond an enormous igloo lair, was the square where their temporary trading post lay. Baldwin looked back at the three younger dragons. "Well? Are you ready? I imagine everyone's there."

"Um." Tripp looked at Pipp.

"What are you looking at me for? He's from the egg _you_ stole," said Pipp.

Tripp rolled her eyes, and looked at Snipp.

"Trrrrrripp!" he said cheerfully. Then he bit her tail. But it was a loving bite, probably.

Frills flattened in pain, she worked her tail free from Snipp's needle teeth. "Yeah. I guess I have to be ready," she told Baldwin.

"Good," said Baldwin, "because if I leave my cauldron alone for too long people will start putting ridiculous things in it."

"Like what?" Pipp asked.

"Oh, you know, the usual. Light Sprites. Booleans. Skycats." He rolled his eyes. "Some people!" He started walking again.

Tripp watched his curious three-legged stride for a moment before following him. Ugh. She was not looking forward to this. On the other hand, the weight of falsehoods made it impossible to hold her head high, and maybe the collective intelligence (and... unconventionalness) of her father's fellow trading post compatriots would find a solution where she and Pipp had failed.

When they finally rounded the corner, Tripp fought one last urge to flee, and glided in with Pipp behind her and Snipp scuttling beneath them, his four white eyes full of curiosity. Baldwin left them with a shout of "Not a Wildclaw scroll, are you _mad?_ " at one of his would-be patrons, and Tripp looked around at these people who were her traveling companions for eleven months out of the year.

Scribbles seemed to be the first to notice their arrival. She watched Scribbles hop up and down by Tomo's tablet, writing furiously, until Tomo, apparently having given this due consideration, finally looked up. Tripp saw her eyes glance over Tripp and Pipp, and then downwards, where she spotted Snipp, and then, very slowly, she raised an eyebrow. "Sorry, sorry, I'm going to have to shut down the trivia for the night, you can all come back later, I'd _love_ to hear everything you know," she told the line of patrons, waving them off with one forefoot. Then she lumbered over to them. "Who is this?" she asked.

"Um," said Tripp.

"I can explain," said Pipp.

Scribbles made a complicated whole-body gesture incorporating both claws and tail.

"I know it's a Mirror hatchling, yes," said Tomo patiently.

Scribbles frantically waved a note in front of her eyes.

"I am _not_ going to check to make sure he's not made of quartz," she said, very precisely. From Scribbles' visible dismay, Tripp suspected she was getting impatient. "Most people aren't, you know."

Scribbles rolled the note up and tucked it away into the scroll case they were wearing. Tripp wondered how many pre-written notes Scribbles carried around, and if all of them were as weird as that. Maybe some of them were weirder.

"See, we saved this hatchling from bears --" Pipp started.

"We did _not_ ," said Tripp, "save anyone from bears. There were no bears. What happened is I stole an egg from Crim and it hatched and his name is Snipp and --" She found the momentum of her words carried her onward like a strong gust of wind. "And I'm not sending him to the Icewarden he's only a hatchling we can keep him with us 'til the Jamboree and maybe then he'll be old enough to decide if he wants to go to the Windsinger or, or, or something but I'm not going to just, he needs to, I can't --"

Tomo's eyes were very wide, and Scribbles was frantically going through their scroll case for the right thing to say, but to Tripp's dismay, _Crim_ , of all people, bounded over to greet them.

"Hello! Who's your new friend?" she asked cheerfully.

Tripp could not handle this. She held her head in her claws and resisted the urge to just wrap herself up in her wings and hide from everyone. It was a good thing she didn't, because Crim apparently thought it was a good idea to lean down and get really close to Snipp's face and squeal at him. He gave a warning hiss and his tail twitched eagerly, and Tripp only just managed to grab hold of him down before he could lunge forward and nip Crim in what he surely thought was an affectionate and playful way. "He's, we, argh Snipp stop it," said Tripp, trying to pin him down despite not weighing much more than him.

"Apparently," said Tomo, "he's from your egg hoa-- uh, collection."

"...Oh!" said Crim. She blinked.  "Wait, what?"

"I stole an egg," Tripp said despairingly. "I'm really sorry."

"Oh," said Crim, again. Tripp was not sure, but she seemed a bit less cheerful. "Well. He certainly has... interesting colors."

"Sssssssnipp," said Snipp, who seemed to know when he was being complimented.

"Oof. Better start saving for scatterscrolls now," said Pinkerton, coming up from behind her. "That's one unlucky hatch."

"Pinkerton! Don't _say_ that! You can't just say things like that about hatchlings!" she said.

"She went through five of 'em before she decided to leave it," said Pinkerton, nodding at his sister. "You should've seen some of those color combinations! Ha!"

"Hey!" said Crim. "...it was only three!"

"I remember five," said Pinkerton.

"You never remember anything right, it was three," said Crim.

"Definitely five," said Pinkerton.

Crim waved a paw at him as if he was irrelevant. "...Sorry, what were we talking about again? Oh! The little Mirror. Where did you find him?"

Tripp was about to tell the story again, and then she froze. Was she going to confess _every five minutes?_

"Tripp found an egg," said Tomo, firmly. Scribbles nodded perhaps a little too emphatically.

"Oh!" said Crim. "How nice for you! You know, I pay 500 treasure for those," she said. She paused and looked at Snipp. "He looks very sweet!"

"He's yours for 500 treasure!" said Pipp, in her salesdragon voice. Tripp glared at her. "...Only joking," she clarified quickly.

" _No,_ " said Pinkerton firmly, snatching Crim's purse up before she could open it and offer the treasure. He stalked back to his pile, snout in the air, and Crim followed, complaining all the way.

"Tripp! Pipp! What is going on here?" their father said, pushing his way into the little semicircle of dragons around them.

Tomo looked placidly at Tripp. And possibly kind of judgmentally. Then, Tripp tended to read a lot of what Tomo did as judgmental. Maybe she was just trying to offer guidance or something.

Scribbles waved a parchment in front of her father's nose.

He pushed it away politely. "I will thoroughly check for quartz later," he said. Scribbles brightened at this, and went back to perching on Tomo's back, satisfied.

"I took an egg from Crim's hoard," said Tripp, hanging her head in shame. "And it kind of hatched? Into a Mirror?"

Her father looked at Snipp, and sighed. "You _stole?_ "

"I think I'd better get back to my fact-checking," said Tomo. As she turned to go, Scribbles threw a paper glider over her shoulder at them.

"Yes," admitted Tripp. "...look, I don't _want_ to be a trader! I'd rather do actual exploration. We always just go to the same places every year and sell most of the same things and I thought maybe if I made a lot of treasure all at once you'd let me... I don't know, do something else, I could hang around with Mom at home or go do things on my own, but instead Snipp happened and --"

"You named him after Great-Uncle Snippedopolous?" her father asked, blinking.

"I'm sorry!" said Tripp, throwing her claws up in the air in frustration at herself and everything about this situation. She picked up Scribbles' glider and unfolded it, so she didn't have to look her father in the eye. It said GOOD LUCK and had a Fae face with happy frills roughly sketched on it. Great. She'd need more than luck to get through this conversation.

"It's not me you have to apologize to," he said.

"I _knowww_ , but Crim won't remember the apology," said Tripp.

There was an awkward silence, in which her father frowned over at Crim and Pinkerton. They were still arguing, although it seemed to be about something Crim had found in Pinkerton's pile at least, and not dragon eggs. "True," said her father. "Anyway, you'll be sorry enough, since you're going to have to earn back enough to buy an egg to replace the one you stole."

"What?" Tripp asked, dismayed.  Then she thought about it, and about how much she'd been planning to sell that egg for. "...yeah, I guess that's fair."

"As for him --"

"I'm not giving him away to a lair full of weirdos," said Tripp, before he could get another word out.

"Hm. That's a pity, I was going to send him home to your mother," said her father. "But our family's probably too weird for you."

"...wait, what?" Tripp asked.

"Well, he can't come along with us until he's old enough to haggle, can he?" said her father. "Besides, don't think I haven't noticed all our snakes disappearing. But your mother's been needing someone to help fetch and carry things for making skins, and he'll be able to do that soon. And once he gets bigger he'll be harder for us to handle. Besides, she misses having you two around," he said, cheerfully. "I'll send him along with Joxar after the Crystalline Gala; he'll be passing through the Windsinger's domain before Trickmurk comes."

"...really?" Tripp asked.

"And as for you..." he said.

Oh. Obviously those weren't the only consequences.

"As for you," he said again, "once you've worked off the cost of the egg, we'll talk about what else you might prefer to do. Pearl of the couriers speaks very highly of your speed."

Tripp perked up. "Wait. Really? You mean -- but I'm not a -- but --"

"Most courier dragons aren't hatched couriers," he said. "If you really want to explore ...well, that'd be a better way to do it than going from trading post to trading post," he said. "But. Only after you've paid off that egg."

"Right," sighed Tripp. "Yeah. Okay." She felt very light all of a sudden. She turned to Snipp. "Hey, kid, you're gonna learn to make skins, I guess," she said.

"Trrrripp?"

"Yeah, it'll be kind of a long trip. But you'll like Mom once you're there. She's a Ridgeback so you can bite her all you want and she probably won't notice!"

He nuzzled her, and her heart melted. "Even though you're a weird bitey thing, you're okay, you know that?" she told Snipp. Then he nipped her arm. "Ow! Not okay enough to do that!"

Snipp trilled cheerfully, and she sighed.

* * *

The next morning, she had to admit that festivals could be pretty great when you weren't running around hiding a bitey Mirror hatchling from your dad. The Icewarden came out and gave a little speech, then immediately turned around and went back up his mountain as usual, but the exalts in charge of the festivities seemed fairly friendly. Tripp managed to put her name in for the couriers' race at the last minute, and came in fifth, which was pretty good considering how out of practice she was and who she was up against. Crim and her vast collection of sweaters won some sort of costume contest and was very pleased with herself, and someone, somewhere, must have foolishly decided to teach Scribbles how to make paper snowflakes because on the third day of the festival they woke up to a veritable paper blizzard.

Snipp took to Joxar immediately when Dad went over to introduce them, and to Tripp's immense relief Joxar did not seem to mind how bitey he was. "I remember when my Doxel was that age!" he said cheerfully, and Snipp spent most of the rest of the day happily gnawing on a bone Joxar had had left over from the last Riot of Rot. So on the last day of the Gala, Tripp knew she was going to miss the little dork, but she wasn't worried about him in the least.

Of course the next day when Dad woke them up, he said, "Well, now. I guess you'd better start earning money for that egg. Couriers tell me they're going for about two hundred thousand treasure lately."

"Yeah, yeah," grumbled Tripp. Eh, she'd earned this punishment. And she did always charge more than Pipp, probably she could make a fair amount if she really put her heart into it. "...during the Jamboree we can take Snipp up to the Cloudsong to visit Blipp, right?" If anyone would appreciate riding on kites, it'd be Snipp. Either that or he'd bite the string. Well, either way he'd probably enjoy it.

"Can't see why not," said Dad cheerfully. Okay, that was something to look forward to, at least. And swapping was easier with that in mind.

* * *

Everyone Tripp knew was crazy, and that was pretty much all right with her. It'd taken her about a year to pay off the egg debt, but she'd decided to keep traveling with Dad for another few years, just to be sure. But she'd made arrangements with Edgar and Pearl to take the tests to become a courier, and that was happening... pretty much after the Mistral Jamboree this year. And she was a little bit terrified, and a little bit overwhelmed, and she had to admit she was gonna miss these guys.

But in the meantime, before all the stress and mild terror of her life changing entirely, she was going to take it easy and fly a kite. Scribbles had helped her make it; she'd borrowed her mother's skin-making supplies and painted a respectable watercolor of a serene mountainside, and then Scribbles had done weird little caricatures of random passers-by. It was a pretty great kite. She was gonna give it to Blipp after the week was up, probably, so he could add it to his collection.

"Tripp, Tripp, Tripp! THERE YOU ARE," said a voice out of nowhere, and suddenly she had been bowled over by Snipp. The kite twitched and fell to the ground, and Snipp ran to fetch it back for her. "Whoa, that's a neat kite. Tripp! Tripp, Dad says you're gonna be courier-ing after this year!"

"Hey, nice to see you too, kid," she said, picking herself up. "Yeah, I'm done with the festival circuit, I think."

"THAT'S SO COOL," said Snipp. "Also Dad says I can go swapping with him now!"

"I hope you like it more than I did," said Tripp, doubtfully.

"It should be fun!" said Snipp.  She'd always thought his grin was kind of funny; he showed off all his teeth, but his crest went out too, like a Fae's frills. "But. He says I can't eat the snakes."

"Everything in life's a tradeoff," she said. "Dunno why you'd want to, they're like gross scaly spaghetti."

Snipp laughed at that. "Hey, want me to help you get the kite in the air again?" he asked.

"Uh. Sure," said Tripp. He was gonna hold the kite while she ran with it, right? Right? When he snatched her up and put her on his back, she realized this was obviously not the plan. "AAAH WINDSINGER'S EYEBALLS WHAT ARE YOU DOING," she demanded. And of course the jerk had the audacity to laugh at that as he sped across the ground.

They spent the afternoon on the steppes, and took a balloon back to the Cloudsong just before sunset.

"Where's the trading post set up?" Snipp asked.

"Uh. That way, I think?" said Tripp, pointing down a walkway festooned with balloons. "Or, maybe, over there?" she asked, pointing past a Skydancer who was lighting the lanterns. "Argh, everything looks different at twilight."

"Aren't Wind dragons supposed to never get lost or something?" Snipp asked.

"Pfft, where'd you hear that?" Tripp asked.

"Dad?"

She giggled. "Oh man, I gotta tell you about the time we got separated from the rest of the party. Dad was all 'I AM WISE AND SENSIBLE AND WE CAN TOTALLY NAVIGATE BY THE STARS' but then it got... really cloudy? Anyway, we stumbled around for a while and then suddenly we were, like, surrounded by angry centaurs and then! SUDDENLY!" She made an appropriately explosive gesture, and Snipp jumped back in surprise. "Crim appears out of nowhere and asks to buy their bows, and they scattered. Anyway, I think it's this way."

"Hey, guys!" said Crim enthusiastically, from behind them. Snipp looked at Tripp, and then they both collapsed laughing. "What?" she asked. "What, is something caught in my fur?"

"It's nothing! I just --" Tripp tried to stop laughing.

"She was telling a story about --" Snipp started.

"You remember that time where we got lost... with the centaurs, and then you showed up out of nowhere?"

"Goodness, no," said Crim, baffled. "It sounds very exciting, though! I showed up out of nowhere?"

"You saved us from beastmen! ...Just don't ever remind my dad of it, he's probably pretty glad you forgot," said Tripp. "Anyway, we're looking for the trading post. You know where it is?"

"Um." Crim looked a little worried. "Theoretically? I have a map. And it's even labeled!"

Tripp examined the map. It had clearly been labeled by Pinkerton, because all the shops had been scribbled over with HERE THERE BE BEASTCLANS and occasionally little skulls and crossbones. "Okay, yeah, I see where we're going." And with the aid of the map, they found their way back to the trading post. They probably could've found it easily anyway, because the closer they got, the more dragons there were, and the harder it was to weave through them.

"Tripp, finally, you're here, _help_ ," said Pipp, when they got to the cart. "You too, Snipp." She shoved a pile of autumnal wreaths into his face, and he blinked all four eyes at her. "A hundred sand creepers and two gold ores, charge whatever you want, I have to go."

"Wow, you're in a hurry. What's the rush?" Tripp asked. She hoped everything was okay.

"Gotta get my scavenger hunt answers for today in before they close!" said Pipp, before flying off.

Snipp rolled his eyes. "That's not _that_ important."

"Aw, she likes her scavenger hunts. I do the races. I'm glad she's having fun and getting away from the stand for a little bit. She used to be _way_ more serious," said Tripp. She stacked up the masks she was going to be swapping and tried to make them look appealing. "Hey, are you looking forward to getting to see all the festivals?" she asked.

"Yeah!" said Snipp. "...are you looking forward to being a courier?"

"Definitely," said Tripp. "It'll be hard, but I think I'll like it. And I'll still get to meet up with you guys some of the time." She looked around at the trading post. Something in Baldwin was simmering away, spattering little flecks of green goop all over; Pinkerton was handing stuff out that, fifty percent of the time, was going straight back to Crim, and Scribbles was clearly having the time of their life making all kinds of weird origami things for trivia fans. "Kinda gonna miss this, but it'll be worth it to see more of Sornieth."

"Yeah. That's kind of how I feel about leaving home," said Snipp.

"...Yeah," she said. Then she thought of something, and frowned. "...Hey, Snipp, did Dad ever tell tell you about the time I stole an egg from Crim?" she asked.

"...What? No!" said Snipp.

"Ah. Well. It's not a very exciting story," said Tripp. She couldn't say she regretted it anymore, but she probably shouldn't encourage her little brother to steal things from poor, unsuspecting Crim. "Maybe I'll tell you later."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, lovely beta, for pointing out where I forgot how to grammar good and when my Faes weren't expressive enough.


End file.
